I'd have a hard time getting too worried about a 20 year old transaction by a 26 year old John Key in any case. Even if completely true, it would be right up there with Benson-Pope's tennis ball.....so old and moldy (and the alleged perp now much older and hopefully wiser) that it's irrelevant.

Where key and national are concerned, the real "dirt" is the gap between their aspirations and the things they have said publicly.

The case against them on that score is an open and shut one, well documented. The bottom line IS that you can't trust them to do as they say because you'd have to work out which version is the true one.

No, I don't think Labour was on the receiving end of Mr. Demi Moore's odd idea of a good-natured practical joke at all. Why do I have the funny feeling Trevor Mallard and/or Pete Hodgson have been shopping this story around the Press Gallery for a long time forgot the proverb that your mouth shouldn't write checks your arse can't cover. Or as Helen Clark used to say, less vividly: Always under-promise and over-deliver.

I'm timing how long it takes for Craig to reply to this post... 10 mins so far ;-)

Sorry for being tardy, Glenn. But here's something to get your blood pressure up -- isn't this the usual m.o. of Ian Wishart? (And I apologise in advance to Bingham for having his work even alluded to in the same post as the name of the Evil One.) We're breathlessly promised the Trump of Doom, and all you end up with is a wet (and stinky) fart.

It couldn't possibly work. Minimum turn-out for a referendum could work, but an election?

I suppose if no-one votes the result would be a little hard to fathom. But as we don't currently have a Parliament, or any MPs it's not like the current lot could just hang around and run the country while another election is organised.

But I feel distinctly uneasy that someone who worked in the industry in which this sort of financial behaviour was normal could be in charge of NZ's economy. Worse, the values underderlying the dog eat dog competitiveness of the financial markets are not those NZ needs for an inclusive society which has many vulnerable populations.

That's between you and the ballot box, I guess, Hilary. But I all too often look at our Parliamentarians and wonder if there's something in the notion that people who seek out political power are the very ones who should never be allowed to have it.

But I all too often look at our Parliamentarians and wonder if there's something in the notion that people who seek out political power are the very ones who should never be allowed to have it.

Reminds me of a story by a journalist from the NSW press gallery who took a friend along to watch the lower house in action. Afterwards, when asked what he thought of the show, his friend observed that the parliamentarians had one thing in common - they all looked as if they'd been kicked when they were at school.

It's a fizzer all right. When I saw it last night I thought "even if it's all true so bloody what?". I can't remember jack about the dates of my movements at that time, and I was personally there for all of them.

Labour will try to make this out to be a Herald beat-up-and-then-down. We'll see if that's true.

It's frustrating that there is so much focus on this when there is so much other stuff, like y'know policy, that could be on the front page this morning. I've been quite startled, reading National's policies, at how brief they are, and how much is left unsaid. I know it's already been said, earlier in the campaign, but really we have now less than 2 weeks before they could be the Government and there are still huge gaps in their plans for the next three years. Take just the employment policy - it covers only four areas (90 day bill, trade away 4th week of annual leave, review Holidays Act, break union monopoly on collective bargaining) and is pretty much silent on everything else. And there's a lot of everything else. If they aren't intending to change anything else how about they explicitly say that?

It particularly concerns me when there is so little attention being paid to the policies of National's first-cab-off-the-rank for coalition talks, Act. I was quite startled by their welfare policy, when I looked at it for a post on the parties' positions on the DPB. Act devote around half of their welfare policy to the one benefit, which covers quite a small number of people really, and their ideas are quite odd to my mind. Given Act's extreme policies and National's silence, I worry.

Of course a university campus is the real world, or no more surreal than anywhere else.

OMG, Craig said something that I completely agree with and have actually said regularly myself!

I've been quite startled, reading National's policies, at how brief they are,

I suspect that if/when National get in power, they don't really have many ideas that are very different from what is happening now. AS to their employment policy, if they think its difficult to fire encumbents now, wait until your current problem employee realises that they can't go any where else without losing their employment rights for 90 days.... Quite a blunt policy for what is more a perceived than a real problem, in my view.

The " bad guys" After you do deals with them you count your fingers......just to see if they stole them as wellHow do I know, well I am dealing with one now, he owes me a million and a half, will he pay, who knowsIf he doesn't can I win, hopefully

Doubt if Miis Clark has ver even done a small deal like this, well with such a big down side for her!

Labour will try to make this out to be a Herald beat-up-and-then-down. We'll see if that's true.

In a weird way, I feel rather sorry for Eugene Bingham. Garth George's latest methane emission is another plaint about how "boring" the campaign is -- because the whole point of a parliamentary democracy is to keep ADHD-afflicted hacks amused. I wouldn't be surprised if the prospect of scoring the sin-sational 'gone by lunchtime'/Brethren gotcha on John Key was just too good to check as rigourously as it would otherwise have been.

Which, in the end, may prove nothing more than hacks are human too -- no matter how hard they try to prove otherwise.